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Author Topic: Sindrian Diktat Changes  (Read 8242 times)

Grievous69

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Re: Sindrian Diktat Changes
« Reply #30 on: May 08, 2022, 03:46:08 AM »

The Lion's Guard as a whole get access to the Diktat's weapons program, not just the Executor.
Where are you reading that? Alex clearly stated that the unique weapons are only reserved for the Executor. And when I suggested that the other ships could use a Kinetic blaster here and there to make it more unique he said he'll think about it.
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StrikeEcho

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Re: Sindrian Diktat Changes
« Reply #31 on: May 08, 2022, 06:06:43 AM »

All the grumbling on the Sindrian Diktat, when it's ultimately a minor thing can be traced back to how the community hyped up the Lion's Guard and Andrada himself based on a few bits of lore and fluff we have about the faction.

This leads to extrapolation of what the SD is and isn't, not helped by mods introducing LG ship skins.

tl;dr - headcanon isn't canon
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Üstad

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Re: Sindrian Diktat Changes
« Reply #32 on: May 08, 2022, 07:39:36 AM »

I think the tone of the post might've been a bit too on the nose. It reads like smug propaganda rather than a cold blooded technical assessment of how tinpot petro-dictatorships typically roll. The Hegemony has a slight tendency to huff its own farts in the name of solidarity and reclaiming the Domain's legacy - but they're a massive military bureaucracy first and foremost, there's no shortage of stone faced analysts seriously examining enemy weaponry with no trace of factional bias.

That said the conclusions are hilariously on point. Pretty paint for the parades! Shiny weapons for firing range demonstrations! Surprisingly little actual bottom-up initiative, despite the leader's founding myth and personal history, because military coups are cyclic and the Hegemony's spies and saboteurs are everywhere. Everywhere.

overall characterization of the man and the government, and why Clownshoes Fascist is suddenly imposed as the Only True Interpretation.  I'd always seen it as a Space Napoleon situation - competent military man put into an impossible situation by his superiors' bureaucratic maneuvers says "to hell with this", cuts the Gordian knot, and finds himself riding a tiger of subsequent events.  You could take that any direction, entirely depending on player inclination.  But apparently shades of gray aren't allowed.
If the Great Man theory of history appeals to you, you need to internalize that dictatorships are successful despite the rot. The rot is unavoidable.

Yes the secret weapons program is Tri-Tach dumping their bad ideas to spite the Hegemony. Yes the upper ranks are full of yes men while the middle ranks are watched closely for undue foreign influence. ("What? Refit our cruisers for SO assault to exploit our secret weapon's kinetic E-slot advantage? Have you been reading the drivel out of Pather pamphlets?!")

None of that matters. Sindria is an ideal and a myth and it's holding strong with Andrada's white knuckle grip on the controls.

Even noticing the clouds on the horizon, even thinking about succession and long-term stability, that puts you in danger. True adherents focus on the upsides and don't fret about potential downsides. They have faith in the people's will to follow their leader's glorious vision.

If you see shades of gray you've already lost sight of that glorious vision and I pity you.
You are still prioritizing lore over the gameplay and so far you failed to explain why elite forces are worse than regular ones. The dictators delusion is just a weak explanation, just relentlessly pushing for it wont make people believe it.
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Igncom1

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Re: Sindrian Diktat Changes
« Reply #33 on: May 08, 2022, 07:46:35 AM »

They aren't elite forces, they are parade forces who dress up and play pretend like elite forces.
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Voyager I

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Re: Sindrian Diktat Changes
« Reply #34 on: May 08, 2022, 08:40:56 AM »

I want to emphasize very strongly that "elite military force of autocratic state that is selected primarily for loyalty to the government and believes their own hype but falls apart as soon as someone tries to use them for actual warfare" is not a fictional concept that Alex just came up with.

Sindria is basically the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, right down to the reason people put up with their ***.
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Big Bee

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Re: Sindrian Diktat Changes
« Reply #35 on: May 08, 2022, 10:15:43 AM »

I want to emphasize very strongly that "elite military force of autocratic state that is selected primarily for loyalty to the government and believes their own hype but falls apart as soon as someone tries to use them for actual warfare" is not a fictional concept that Alex just came up with.

And that's completely fine! The issue is mostly the implementation, that their rare, reskinned ships have no benefit over their base hulls whatsoever to make up for their downsides. Even the Pirates and Pathers can make ship variants that have some benefit and reason to use over their base versions, so it's odd that LG ships don't even get some different mounts that would make the ships have some use as a sidegrade. They don't have to be upgrades, they can even be slightly weaker by default, just don't make them direct downgrades without even any neutral non-cosmetic differences.
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Amazigh

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Re: Sindrian Diktat Changes
« Reply #36 on: May 08, 2022, 12:01:48 PM »

And that's completely fine! The issue is mostly the implementation, that their rare, reskinned ships have no benefit over their base hulls whatsoever to make up for their downsides.
They aren't elite forces, they are parade forces who dress up and play pretend like elite forces.
I think it might be better if rather than "Special modifications" it was something like "Parade Armouring"
So it's modifications that make the ship look nice and shiny for a parade but don't actually have any real practical combat bonus, maybe even the shiny outer cladding layer is weaker than the standard less pretty cladding, and could even interfere with flux dissipation.
But it looks nice and shiny, so there's no way the Elite Lions Guard ships are going to say no to using it.
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Null Ganymede

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Re: Sindrian Diktat Changes
« Reply #37 on: May 08, 2022, 04:11:45 PM »

You are still prioritizing lore over the gameplay and so far you failed to explain why elite forces are worse than regular ones. The dictators delusion is just a weak explanation, just relentlessly pushing for it wont make people believe it.
I was kind of hoping that describing the general pattern would help you recognize it in conflicts you're familiar with. It is, after all, common as dirt.

Like dirt, more common in some places than others. Without referencing currently occurring events look at the performance of any Soviet-trained middle eastern tank crews, the Afghani use of captured AKS-74Us as status symbols, Armenian air defenses being paraded vs being droned... Or, if it feels like I'm showing bias: liquidation of AA special forces, Afghani use of captured optics as a status symbol, actual combat performance of expensive Patriot batteries (and Israel's furious efforts to first upgrade and improve their firmware, then straight up replace them with more reliable domestic production...)

An elite recon unit packing their parade uniforms then getting cut off and captured is a thing. Their captors looking at their fancy rare suppressed weapons and going "huh, these would be real handy while doing guerilla stuff on our home turf" is very much a thing. Admittedly so is refusing to accept reality and maintaining your headcannon, which, tbh, is how it should be.

Edit: first thing I'm doing when patch lands is getting into a phase frigate then baiting and whittling down isolated Sindrian patrols until they drop kinetic heavy blasters. The resulting SO Plasma Cannon Sunder flagship is going to conquer the sector.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2022, 04:28:00 PM by Null Ganymede »
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Üstad

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Re: Sindrian Diktat Changes
« Reply #38 on: May 08, 2022, 05:11:26 PM »

You are still prioritizing lore over the gameplay and so far you failed to explain why elite forces are worse than regular ones. The dictators delusion is just a weak explanation, just relentlessly pushing for it wont make people believe it.
I was kind of hoping that describing the general pattern would help you recognize it in conflicts you're familiar with. It is, after all, common as dirt.

Like dirt, more common in some places than others. Without referencing currently occurring events look at the performance of any Soviet-trained middle eastern tank crews, the Afghani use of captured AKS-74Us as status symbols, Armenian air defenses being paraded vs being droned... Or, if it feels like I'm showing bias: liquidation of AA special forces, Afghani use of captured optics as a status symbol, actual combat performance of expensive Patriot batteries (and Israel's furious efforts to first upgrade and improve their firmware, then straight up replace them with more reliable domestic production...)

An elite recon unit packing their parade uniforms then getting cut off and captured is a thing. Their captors looking at their fancy rare suppressed weapons and going "huh, these would be real handy while doing guerilla stuff on our home turf" is very much a thing. Admittedly so is refusing to accept reality and maintaining your headcannon, which, tbh, is how it should be.

Edit: first thing I'm doing when patch lands is getting into a phase frigate then baiting and whittling down isolated Sindrian patrols until they drop kinetic heavy blasters. The resulting SO Plasma Cannon Sunder flagship is going to conquer the sector.
All I'm saying it can be opposite considering the fact the other factions in the game are not democratic at all they should have suffer from these as well by this logic. I get that this is your headcannon, it's just many people on the forum is not feeling it that way. And it's not good for the gameplay, which should be prioritized not the lore. In fact even if we don't deviate from the current lore for some reason, which I think it's okay to retcon at this stage, I would suggest special modifications should with interesting, powerful but unreliable shipsystems that change for every Lions Guard ship. It would be more fitting for this story, it looks great on paper but the results are just bad. Currently it doesn't even look great on paper and so far Sindrian Diktat looks boring and uniquified in a very wrong way.

I think the tone of the post might've been a bit too on the nose. It reads like smug propaganda rather than a cold blooded technical assessment of how tinpot petro-dictatorships typically roll. The Hegemony has a slight tendency to huff its own farts in the name of solidarity and reclaiming the Domain's legacy - but they're a massive military bureaucracy first and foremost, there's no shortage of stone faced analysts seriously examining enemy weaponry with no trace of factional bias.

That said the conclusions are hilariously on point. Pretty paint for the parades! Shiny weapons for firing range demonstrations! Surprisingly little actual bottom-up initiative, despite the leader's founding myth and personal history, because military coups are cyclic and the Hegemony's spies and saboteurs are everywhere. Everywhere.

overall characterization of the man and the government, and why Clownshoes Fascist is suddenly imposed as the Only True Interpretation.  I'd always seen it as a Space Napoleon situation - competent military man put into an impossible situation by his superiors' bureaucratic maneuvers says "to hell with this", cuts the Gordian knot, and finds himself riding a tiger of subsequent events.  You could take that any direction, entirely depending on player inclination.  But apparently shades of gray aren't allowed.
If the Great Man theory of history appeals to you, you need to internalize that dictatorships are successful despite the rot. The rot is unavoidable.

Yes the secret weapons program is Tri-Tach dumping their bad ideas to spite the Hegemony. Yes the upper ranks are full of yes men while the middle ranks are watched closely for undue foreign influence. ("What? Refit our cruisers for SO assault to exploit our secret weapon's kinetic E-slot advantage? Have you been reading the drivel out of Pather pamphlets?!")

None of that matters. Sindria is an ideal and a myth and it's holding strong with Andrada's white knuckle grip on the controls.

Even noticing the clouds on the horizon, even thinking about succession and long-term stability, that puts you in danger. True adherents focus on the upsides and don't fret about potential downsides. They have faith in the people's will to follow their leader's glorious vision.

If you see shades of gray you've already lost sight of that glorious vision and I pity you.

It could be bureaucratized dictatorship and be competent like Napoleons and the long term rot is not really relevant. It's not a long lasting strategy game where we need to see inevitable rot and it's a weak argument imo since everything in the end rots, so it's not really relevant.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2022, 05:21:15 PM by Üstad »
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Null Ganymede

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Re: Sindrian Diktat Changes
« Reply #39 on: May 08, 2022, 05:27:17 PM »

It's not a democracy thing. There's no democratic militaries. It's definitely a shame that the rare pretty midline ships are straight downgrades unless you're fighting nothing but remnants in coronas.

It'd be cool if the Lion was a Napoleon or Alexander the Great character but the Diktat's been holed up in one system since its formation. One of the pirate Warlords is a better fit for that role. Maybe he can be a John Boyd type: brilliant and revolutionary in his niche, big ego and fanatical adherents, not as much of a generalist as they think they are.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2022, 05:32:00 PM by Null Ganymede »
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Histidine

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Re: Sindrian Diktat Changes
« Reply #40 on: May 08, 2022, 06:28:17 PM »

Others have already covered the lore connections to RL (here and the blogpost thread) better than I could, so I'll just say that having minor upsides for Special Modifications* and/or the built-in Solar Shielding would make the pill easier to swallow for players. I'm thinking something like a 5% hull integrity bonus, and a 25-50% OP discount compared to modular version, respectively.
Pretty sure it's been mentioned in some way before, but LP ships being best by far in their niche post-restoration, while the LG ships remain worse than baseline, is... awkward.

*it might look strange for an officially-a-dmod to have an upside, but ironically SpecMods is the only D-mod right now that doesn't have the upside of lower supplies-to-recover cost
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CrashToDesktop

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Re: Sindrian Diktat Changes
« Reply #41 on: May 08, 2022, 11:03:42 PM »

Where are you reading that? Alex clearly stated that the unique weapons are only reserved for the Executor. And when I suggested that the other ships could use a Kinetic blaster here and there to make it more unique he said he'll think about it.
Straight from the blog post:
Quote
Both the normal military and the Lion’s Guard get access to the Executor; the Lion’s Guard however are the only ones lucky enough to also have full access to the fruits of the weapons program. Their elite Executor variant is loaded for bear – with a pair of Gigacannons, and a quartet of Kinetic Blasters.
This at least gives me the idea that weapons program would be available to the Lion's Guard as a whole, just with an emphasis on the Executor as it's main "beneficiary".

You are still prioritizing lore over the gameplay and so far you failed to explain why elite forces are worse than regular ones. The dictators delusion is just a weak explanation, just relentlessly pushing for it wont make people believe it.
The problem is, there's nothing strictly wrong with it. Gameplay-wise, Lion's Guard ships act and function like slightly weaker vessels, as intended. No one complains that the Colossus Mk.III's fighter bays are hideously kneecapped. You're treating LG ships this they're a 14th Battlegroup equivalent, which it's clearly not intended to be. You don't need to have a reason to use every ship in the game.

You're expecting an "elite" force to have the best equipment and receive special attention. The Lion's Guard receive both, in the form of the Diktat weapons program, Lion's Guard specific modifications, and slightly improved ship quality over regular Diktat patrols (fewer d-mods on average, as per Alex's tweet). These are the "best" because they both came at the request of Supreme Executor Andrada. However, it subverts your expectations and does some storytelling, since the Lion's Guard ships in fact are worse off than usual due to the machinations of a deeply flawed governing body.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2022, 11:08:51 PM by The Soldier »
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Antelope Syrup

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Re: Sindrian Diktat Changes
« Reply #42 on: May 08, 2022, 11:13:16 PM »

Honestly, this argument is silly. Weather or not you support this design decision boils down almost entirely to weather or not you liked the orange cartoon fascists or the purple cartoon fascists for whatever reason. This is for the most part, emotional. Does it really matter that Lions gaurd ships have a small debuf? Not really. But people, (myself included) lose their crap over it because it feels like a betrayal of the Diktats previous characterization.
I’ve found mostly, the people whom support the change were the people who already didn’t like diktat for whatever personal reason.

 The discussion has been so focused on this because the entire Sindrian part of the blogpost was about the Lion’s guard; And we had already seen twitter posts about the Pegasus and DEMs. In the way of remnants, we got a few paragraphs and a gif, not much to go on.

Ultimately, most players don’t like this decision because it undeniably has a underwhelming or negative impact on gameplay. Starsector historically speaking at the very least, wasn’t a story driven game, and still isn’t for the most part; And while the world building, lore, and storytelling are exquisite, they are still secondary to the actual gameplay. A vast majority people play starsector for the experience of playing starsector, therefore the gameplay takes precedence. When people see the new, very cool, ship variants they want it to have an interesting impact on gameplay. D-skins are not interesting in the slightest.

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Grievous69

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Re: Sindrian Diktat Changes
« Reply #43 on: May 08, 2022, 11:16:18 PM »

Quote
In addition to the elite loadout for the Executor, the Lion’s Guard also gets access to equally-elite versions of all of the regulars’ midline ships. They have a similar “stark” look and sport the Diktat’s colors. All of these “benefit” from the built-in “Special Modifications” hullmod, as well as built-in-at-cost Solar Shielding. Unlike the Executor, these don’t get access to the special weapons.
Truly remarkable how some are so adamant at defending their points and trying to explain mumbo jumbo for Alex yet lack the ability to read. Imagine discussing a blog post with people who barely read it, but no let's just keep mentioning real life example, that'll teach them.

Quote
The problem is, there's nothing strictly wrong with it.
There's everything wrong with it, they're literally worse than any other skin in the game. Pirate hulls are either different due to mounts, ship system, cost, etc. LP skins get built-in SO. These are the *** terrorists and the outperform a faction military by a wide margin. Again, I don't have issues with ships not made to be something extra, for all I care make them worse. But make them actually unique and interesting, not "basically x without any other differences but less yz stats and less OP". How can people still argue that this isn't bad for gameplay is beyond me. Do you really wish ill on the game just so you can say you were defending Alex's points back in the day?

@Antelope Syrup
Good post just as I was writing mine. People enjoy this game because it's fun to play, not because "look haha they make dictator guy silly bad man".
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Antelope Syrup

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Re: Sindrian Diktat Changes
« Reply #44 on: May 08, 2022, 11:27:58 PM »

I will also say I don’t like how the two new Diktat weapons impact gameplay. The only way to obtain them is by farming LG fleets. As many others have stated this boils the Diktat down into “Guys you have to kill for the funny gun”. This is boring. Alex’s counterpoint was essentially “No, because if you want the weapons you have to risk your reputation with the diktat”. The problem being, nobody cares!

Sindrian fuel isn’t that lucrative, lobster isn’t either. There is nothing to gain from a diktat commission than possibly a worse version of another factions capital. People usually only take commissions because of role play reasons, and there’s little left in the way of appeal regarding the Diktat anymore.

@Grievous69 thank you :)
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